N. E. Brigand, in conjunction
with his Diary review of "Fandom" by
Anthony Burdge and Jessica Burke, December
30, 2007

In Michael Drout’s introduction to
the Encyclopedia, he explains that
it is meant to include both
“’Tolkien Studies’—scholarship about
Tolkien the author and his works of
literature—and ‘Middle-earth
Studies’—analysis of Tolkien’s
invented worlds, histories,
languages, creatures, etc.” To
demonstrate the value of
Middle-earth Studies, Drout writes,
“What kind of critical insights
could a critic have about the
madness and despair of Denethor
without understanding what exactly
it was that Denethor saw in the
palantír? (Hint: this information
must be ferreted out of Appendix
B.)”

Here Drout is referring to the
theory, nowhere confirmed by
Tolkien, that Denethor sees Frodo
imprisoned by orcs in the Tower of
Cirith Ungol (as noted in the
Encyclopedia’s article on Denethor),
and so wrongly believes that Sauron
has regained the Ring. This is the
insight of Tom Shippey, in J.R.R.
Tolkien: Author of the Century
(pp. 171-174). Shippey intends by
this interpretation to explain
Denethor’s exclamation, in “The
Siege of Gondor”, that “the Enemy
has found it” (i.e., the Ring).
Referring to chronology in “The Tale
of Years”, Shippey connects
incidents from two widely separated
sections of the book in a nice bit
of literary detective work.
(However, not all scholars agree
with Shippey’s interpretation: Wayne
Hammond and Christina Scull, in
The Lord of the Rings: A Readers
Companion [pp. 547-548], offer a
different explanation for Denethor’s
remarks.)

Shippey’s close reading in this
instance is one of the pre-eminent
examples of Middle-earth Studies,
precisely because it is more than
Middle-earth Studies. His work is
done in support of a larger
argument, in which he demonstrates
the ironic effect of Tolkien’s
interlacing plot structure, and
furthers a comparison of the ways
that parallel characters, Denethor
and Théoden, respond to despair.
But do Shippey’s efforts differ from
the careful attention and research
that critics use to analyze any work
of literature? After all, it is
regular practice in literary
analysis to refer to paratextual
material like Tolkien’s appendices.

If there is a difference, it is due
to the sheer size and complexity of
the imaginary history and geography
created by Tolkien, and the literary
effects that can be missed if the
reader doesn’t keep track of the
details. For instance, Christine
Brooke-Rose, in A Rhetoric of the
Unreal, argues that The Lord
of the Rings is over-weighted
with realistic minutia and dismisses
the finer points of Tolkien’s
created world as an unnecessary “megatext”.
While making this case, she
identifies Elrond as Arwen’s
brother, describes the Hobbits’
swords as “dwarf-made”, and claims
that Gandalf fights a Troll on a
“bridge of fire” in Moria. Mistakes
such as these make a difference to
the meaning conveyed by Tolkien’s
characters, objects, and scenes. To
that end, I suspect that Drout’s
main purpose in calling for the
Encyclopedia to include Middle-earth
Studies was to ask that contributors
have a thorough knowledge of the
finer points of Tolkien’s creation,
to avoid errors like these, before
applying literary theory to his
works.

What Drout can’t have intended was
the response of some contributors,
who take his request too much to
heart. They all but abandon Tolkien
Studies for Middle-earth Studies,
often in the form of mock-historical
surveys of characters or places.
Examples can be seen in greater or
smaller parts of the “Éomer”,
“Shire”, “Bilbo”, “Wilderland”, “Gríma”,
and “Palantíri“ entries,
among others. Articles like these
have been criticized in this Diary,
and elsewhere. John Garth complains
of articles “whose sole frame of
reference is Middle-earth, as if
such entries had strayed in from the
old-style Tolkien encyclopedias”
like Robert Foster’s The Complete
Guide to Middle-earth. Kelley
M. Wickham-Crowley decries entries
on characters “that rehearse
attributes and deeds … [in the
manner of] the admittedly useful
guides to Tolkien and Middle-earth
that give descriptive information …
[but] there is no reason why
critical thought need go missing”.

Like most of the Encyclopedia’s
Middle-earth efforts, these articles
present the genre’s simplest form,
merely rearranging the scattered
information that Tolkien provides
about characters, settings or
artifacts into histories that match
his stories’ internal chronology.
Much more complex approaches are
possible. Though the practice of
Middle-earth Studies dates back to
at least the 1960s, the term was
apparently coined by John Ellison
and Patricia Reynolds in Mallorn
31 (which I have not seen) and
was used again by Reynolds as an
umbrella heading for four articles
in the Proceedings of the
1992 Tolkien Centenary Conference.
Their titles suggest the tenor of
the field’s more in-depth efforts:
“A Physics of Middle-earth”,
“Explorations into the Psyche of
Dwarves”, “The Geology of
Middle-earth”, and “Writing and
Allied Technologies in
Middle-earth”. Similar exercises
can be found in Henry Gee’s book,
The Science of Middle-earth,
which considers such matters as the
biological implications of Legolas’s
ability to see clearly a troop of
riders from 15 miles away, and Karen
Wynn Fonstad’s Atlas of
Middle-earth, which speculates
on the geologic history underlying
Tolkien’s landforms.

A few articles in the Encyclopedia
pursue a similar course, to varying
degrees. According to the family
trees in LotR, Merry was an
only child, and Pippin was the
youngest in his family. Tolkien
never mentions these facts in his
narrative, but the Encyclopedia
articles on these characters use
these points to comment on their
psychology. Some entries on
geographical subjects (e.g. “Misty
Mountains”) include statements on
the geology of Middle-earth, usually
derived from the supposition in
Fonstad’s Atlas. The
“Mordor” and “Koivië-néni and
Cuiviénen” articles go a step
farther, guessing at the history of
the Sea of Nurnen and of Cuiviénen,
respectively, where Tolkien is
silent, or only vaguely suggestive;
these two entries also respond to
earlier work by Fonstad, Foster, and
wikipedia. “Biology in
Middle-earth” applies evolutionary
principles to Tolkien’s imaginary
creatures. Most notably, Gene
Hargrove’s “Tom Bombadil” article
argues that Bombadil is actually
Aulë the Vala in disguise.

Hargrove’s entry is a key example of
the limitations of Middle-earth
Studies. Tolkien wrote that he
intended Bombadil to be an enigma.
Hargrove acknowledges this, but like
many frustrated fans before him, he
is determined to solve the puzzle.
It is possible that Tolkien
privately had some story-internal
explanation for Bombadil that might
yet be divined by a critic, but
Hargrove offers no larger reason to
speculate on Bombadil’s identity.
As in most such investigations, he
sets aside literary matters to
examine only subjects internal to
Tolkien’s invented world and its
history, as if Middle-earth were an
independent creation on which
Tolkien’s stories merely report
(please note I am not claiming that
these writers actually believe that
Middle-earth is real). Often these
studies pose and then respond to
questions about Tolkien’s imaginary
world that he “himself never tried
to answer”, as explained by
Michael Martinez, who has become
one of the best-known practitioners
of Middle-earth Studies, in a series
of internet essays and books
(including Visualizing
Middle-earth and
Understanding Middle-earth).

In fact, such questions could be
asked, endlessly, about the world in
which any author’s stories take
place. Not just Middle-earth but
all fictional settings can be
imagined to extend far “offstage” in
space and time. Tolkien’s work
attracts this kind of speculation
because he was so thorough in its
creation, so that matters that he
chose not to discuss are perceived
by readers as lacunae. David
Bratman
has written that “a large part
of Tolkien’s appeal is that such
conjecture is possible without
becoming risible”. But where an
apparent mystery has no bearing on
the effect of Tolkien’s texts as
literature, particularly on the
fringes where the explanations
provided by Middle-earth Studies
become very tenuously connected to
Tolkien’s work (a recent linguistic
example supposes that the
language spoken by the “wild
were-worms in the Last Desert”,
creatures mentioned once in The
Hobbit, might be flavored by
Chinese), scholarship gives way to a
mix of logical dexterity and
creative fill-in-the-blanks. Such
efforts demonstrate command of
Middle-earth’s details, and great
skill at resolving statements from
disparate texts into a believable
whole, but they can be judged only
by their own internal consistency
and rhetorical skill. As Richard
West recognized as far back as 1972
(see Scull and Hammond’s Reader’s
Guide, p. 197), that is neither
criticism nor scholarship:
Middle-earth Studies, tied to just
one source, is at best a subset of
Tolkien Studies.
One reviewer of Michael
Martinez’s work has aptly called his
work “a fun intellectual game for
Tolkien fans to play, a kind of
fan-fiction that wears a historian's
mask”. There is a similar activity
in studies of Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes stories that begins
with the assumption that the
characters really existed (again,
not as a genuine belief but as the
basis for speculation). That field
of inquiry is called “The Game”.
Appropriately, Tolkien himself used
the same term: as he labored on the
LotR appendices, he wrote: “I
am not now at all sure that the
tendency to treat the whole thing as
a kind of vast game is really good”
(Letter #160).

Tolkien wrote this because he
himself engaged in Middle-earth
Studies. In fact, it was a central
part of his creative method: he
wrote many stories and essays to
explain apparent mysteries in
earlier texts. For example,
Unfinished Tales includes a
short history of “Queen Berúthiel”,
written to explain a name appearing
just once in LotR. Letter
#214 includes an elaborate
explanation of hobbit birthday
customs, intended to resolve an
inconsistency between descriptions
in the LotR Prologue and “The
Shadow of the Past”. The writing of
LotR itself, as shown in the
relevant History of Middle-earth
volumes, is replete with instances
of Tolkien trying to figure out
“what really happened” as he built
his masterwork. But Tolkien had the
advantage of being the author of
literature, not history, and he was
not engaged in Tolkien scholarship.
When something in his texts appears
inexplicable, or where the texts are
silent, the likeliest causes are
that Tolkien intended ambiguity for
its artistic effect, or that he
didn’t care, or simply that he
erred. Judged in terms of history,
physics, sociology, etc.,
Middle-earth will be found wanting,
because its “facts” are subservient
to their use in the story. The
Encyclopedia’s entry on “Maps”, for
instance, rightly observes that the
map that Tolkien used to coordinate
the timing of his characters’
travels in LotR makes no
allowances for a round Earth. This
means that, judged in real-world
terms, journeys in the story’s
southern field of action cover too
much distance in too little time.
This is not a problem that can
resolved by correcting the maps
against some real landscape. The
only source for resolving
inconsistencies in Middle-earth is
Tolkien, and often he has nothing to
say.

However, Middle-earth Studies does
belong in the Encyclopedia, not as a
method but as a subject. It is an
important example of how readers
respond to Tolkien, and deserves
treatment similar to what the
Encyclopedia affords to Tolkien’s
reception in diverse countries and
cultures. This ought to have been
managed in two ways. First, for
those subjects in which there is an
established speculative response,
that reaction should have been
discussed, but clearly identified as
a much-constrained form of literary
analysis. The “Technology in
Middle-earth” article, for instance,
mentions Tolkien’s curious portrayal
of the Shire, where alone in
Middle-earth umbrellas and
mechanical clocks are found, but
never attempts to explain why
Tolkien allows these anachronisms.
Here it would have been appropriate
to note that this inconsistency has
been the subject of much comment by
readers, who have tried to explain
it as either an instance of relics
that linger from the advanced
Númenórean technology described in
The Lost Road, or as the
result of later errors in the “Red
Book” manuscript tradition, by which
the story of LotR is imagined
to have been transmitted to the
modern reader. These clever
interpretations are well-known
enough to deserve both notice and
response, including the best
(story-external) solutions, which
are that the Shire’s modernity is in
keeping with the hobbits’ literary
role as representatives of the
modern reader, and that The
Hobbit was written with less
attention to internal consistency
than Tolkien later gave LotR.

Second, Middle-earth Studies itself
should have been the subject of some
analysis: What are its tenets? Who
are its main practitioners? How has
the field developed? What are its
failings? How does it insinuate
itself into literary scholarship?
Even Christopher Tolkien sometimes
slips, as when he writes in
Unfinished Tales (p. 12) how his
father “revealed” –rather than
“created”– new information on the
Drúedain people, who first appeared
in LotR. When has
Middle-earth Studies yielded results
for Tolkien Studies, as with
Shippey’s ideas about Denethor? I
particularly like Verlyn Flieger’s
theory that Frodo, like Sigurd or
Arthur, receives his sword by
withdrawing it from a beam, though
Tolkien never says explicitly that
he does so (and most readers miss
it). Finally, what are the main
subjects of Middle-earth
investigations? These questions
could have been answered in a
separate entry, as part of the
“Tolkien Scholarship” articles, or
in the entry on “Fandom”. That
article ignores one of major
subjects of fan discussion, though
it is raised briefly in Drout’s
introduction, where he writes,
“sadly, we will still not determine
whether or not the balrog has
functional wings—that is a question
beyond any resolution”. But that
question can only have come to light
when two different fan
interpretations first collided, in
the lost dawn of Middle-earth
Studies. Has anyone ever traced the
history of that raging controversy?
Who knows – the Encyclopedia never
mentions balrog wings again.

The J.R.R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia: Scholarship and
Critical Assessment is a
very large book, weighing just under
4.5 pounds, with 800 folio size
two-column pages, including a list
of the forty-six contributors, an
alphabetical list of entries, a
thematic list of entries, and an
index. Right from the start, the
Encyclopedia was meant to be the
starting reference in terms of
Tolkien scholarship, in terms of his
fiction, his scholarly publications,
and his biography. Michael D. C.
Drout, the author of
Beowulf and the Critics,
and an editor of the scholarly
journal Tollkien Studies, is
the Editor, with Douglas A.
Anderson, Marjorie Burns, Verlyn
Flieger, and Thomas Shippey as
Associate Editors. That list of
names, with the addition of another
handful more, is pretty much the
list of the top Tolken scholars.

Like many other medievalists, I
read Michael C. Drout's blog
Wormtalk and Slugspeak
regularly. In fall of 2003 when
Drout posted that Routledge had
hired him to edit the
Encyclopedia, and he wanted
volunteers to write scholarly
articles, I responded with alacrity.
I was tapped to contribute seven
articles, and did. That's something
to bear in mind as you read this
review, since I'm almost certainly
biased.

Drout marshaled his contributors
and assigned entries, began
requesting changes to submitted
entries at about the time Routledge
was bought by Taylor and Francis.
The Encyclopedia almost died
before printing, but since it was
well advanced, it was approved for
publication. But it was, as it
turned out, publication without
editorial support -- that is,
without proofreaders or copy
editors, or . . . well, the usual
support staff one expects from a
publisher.

Slightly over 500 entries range
in length from 150 words to a few
lengthy and very thorough entries of
several thousand words on topics
like the "Languages of Tolkien," by
one of the leading experts, Carl F.
Hostetter. In addition to the
editorial board members, there are
roughly another 120 contributors.
Most entries are followed by a list
of works cited, and cross-references
to other entries. Unfortunately,
many entries lack bibliographic
references or cross-references.

Especially well done entries are
Hotstetter on the "Languages of
Tolkien," and "Elvish Compositions
and Grammars," Tom Shippey on
"Literature, Twentieth Century:
Influence of Tolkien" and "Scholars
of Medieval Literature, Influence
of," Verlyn Flieger's "Time" and "Faërie,"
"Poems by Tolkien: The Hobbit,"
"Poems by Tolkien: LOTR," Marjorie
Burns on "Old Norse Mythology," Don
N. Anger on Tolkien's "Report on the
Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman
and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park,
Gloucestershire" (on Tolkien's early
article about the temple dedicated
to the Celtic deity Nodons), and
Carol A. Leibiger's "Charms."
Tolkien scholar Gergely Nagy manages
to be scholary, erudite and precise
without being boring, no easy task.

It is apparent that editorial and
production values were sacrificed in
Taylor and Francis' effort to
publish the
Encyclopedia
as expeditiously as possible. There
are formatting and typesetting
errors, grammar and proofreading
errors, cross-references to
non-existing articles (many of which
were hastily merged into other
entries by the publisher, against
editorial advice, and without
including the promised "blind"
entries) and infelicities of various
sorts that copy editing would have
caught. The ordering of entries is
such that the
Encyclopedia
doesn't seem to follow any
alphabetic standard; "Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight: Edition" with E.
V. Gordon" is listed under S, while
"Sir Orfeo" is listed under O.

The editorial and production
decisions made by Francis and Taylor
included omitting all of the hundred
or so illustrations that had
initially been intended as part of
the book, and completely changing
the carefully designed
cross-reference system. These both
adversely affect the value and
utility of the final book; the
price, $175.00 (or more), is still
what one would pay for a scholarly
illustrated encyclopedia though it
is now without them, and the
utility, because it can be very
difficult to find a particular entry
because so many smaller entries were
merged but not cross-referenced. If
you're curious, you can read Michael
Drout's posts about the behind the
scenes editorial process
here.

To compensate for some of the
cross-referencing and indexing
oddities, Drout has posted
links to a corrected
Thematic List, a list of
Contributors and Articles, and links
to Merlin de Tardo's Corrigenda.
Curious readers who are not able to
purchase the Encyclopedia
themselves may find browsing
Squire's J. R. R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia -- A Reader's Diary
worthwhile; Squire and his fellow
reviewers are exceedingly
knowledgeable about Tolkien's own
output and about Tolkien
scholarship. A proposal to put all
of the entries, with corrections,
online in a wiki, is underway at the
J. R. R. Tolkien Encylopedia
Portal.

Despite some less than
satisfactory results, the
Encyclopedia is well-done overall,
and very useful. It belongs on the
shelf of the serious Tolkien scholar
and enthusiast, right along
The Lord of the Rings: A
Reader's Companion by
Wayne G. Hammond and Christina
Scull. But given the exceedingly
high cost of the
Encyclopedia, most people
will simply have to hope that their
local academic library is lucky
enough to purchase one of the very
few (800 versus the initially
planned 2500) copies produced, or
the the wiki project is successful.

In the end, I'm disappointed
that Routledge / Taylor and
Francis marched the ball down
the field almost to the end zone
and then decided to punt. This
is still a very, very good
resource, but it could have been
a great one, and I'm
disappointed that it's not.

Review by Kelley M.
Wickham-Crowley, in
Tolkien Studies IV, May 2007
(excerpted and reproduced without
permission)

[Note: Most of
Prof. Wickham-Crowley's detailed
critiques of specific Encyclopedia
articles have been omitted, but the
article titles and the thrust of her
criticisms are identified in blue
bracketed inserts. To give points of
comparison to this very thorough
review, links to the articles' Diary
reviews have been provided. -
squire, August 29, 2007]

This encyclopedia project is
ambitious for its serious attempt at
internationally diverse coverage of
scholarship and critical assessment
of Tolkien, of his scholarly and
literary writings, and of the
historical and literary contexts and
influences involved. It seems fair
to judge the success of the
encyclopedia by the stated aims of
its editor. Michael Drout's
introduction makes it clear that he
saw this encyclopedia as an effort
to be if not all things to all
people, as close as he could manage.
He aimed to appeal to and include
work by "varied and interconnected
communities and individuals" to
"bridge gaps and bring together
separate branches of knowledge"
(xxix), including within Tolkien
scholarship the study of Tolkien and
his works (Tolkien Studies) and
analysis of specifics in such
inventions as worlds, peoples, and
tongues (Middle-earth Studies) but
also bringing in a wider range of
interests and writers.

Knowing such a task might be
endless, Drout made his editorial
choices with an eye to "connections
outside of Middle-earth" (for
example, discussing the Haradrim
within Tolkien's history but also in
connections to medieval texts) and
in terms of "reception and
significance" including contemporary
literary criticism and theory
(xxix). While acknowledging that
Tolkien scholarship is yet a young
field the world over, he made a case
for including analysis and
interpretation here though critical
views may change. He wanted
Tolkien's scholarship covered "by
experts in the individual
specialities" (a British phrase
though Drout is American), in
particular as it "is not always
accessible or understandable to the
lay reader" (xxx), an attitude
somewhat patronizing, especially
given his willingness as an academic
to open this project (rightly) to
knowledgeable writers who are not.
To counter "incorrect or merely
trendy viewpoints," he sought over
"120 contributors, from various
countries" and asked them to
approach issues "without
tendentiousness and to attempt to
explain the various sides of
difficult issues" (xxx). He also
added entries so that Tolkien could
be seen within his own historical
contexts, and, having to limit the
range of such inquiry, he tried "to
err on the side of explanation."
These parameters seem laudable and
reasonable, and the volume often
surprises and rewards a reader.
Thanks to an advisory board
comprised of associate editors who
also produce this journal, an
impressive collection of
contributors labored on it.

Their work, however, was badly
served by Taylor and Francis Group,
who bought out Routledge,
discontinued their encyclopedia
division, and let its editors go
while this volume was in production,
publishing it only because of how
far along it was in the process.
Drout's
online discussion of difficulties
with the publisher lists major
problems
. . . In
fairness, while Drout may find it
odd that the press did not contact
the over 125 contributors for
corrections, that is not uncommon
and usually considered part of an
editor's work whether for an
anthology or for an encyclopedia
unless otherwise agreed in writing,
so his efforts to gather corrections
from his writers should be seen as
outside his own previous experience
but not unusual. He did receive a
second set of proofs which coincided
with a bout of pneumonia, but in any
case, the book went to press without
another once-over by anyone but
seemingly incompetent copy-editors.
Drout comments that "contributors
should not be blamed" as they did
not proof final articles and his
efforts to protect them from
undeserved criticism is admirable.
The press should bear the blame for
not committing to a quality
product—at the least it will bear
its name, and given the popularity
of all things Tolkien, they should
perhaps have fired the marketing
board instead of the encyclopedia
editors if they truly reduced
production numbers. Most readers
will neither know nor care that
Taylor and Francis Group does not
want to deal in encyclopedias; they
will simply see a useful but shoddy
product and blame those whose names
appear in it. But before a reader
decides not to purchase or use this
text given these problems, read on:
a wealth of serious and perceptive
material makes this flawed volume an
important step in assessing the
works and influences of Tolkien.

One of the greatest strengths of the
encyclopedia is the sheer diversity
of scholarship represented.
Contributors come from Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Canada,
England, Germany, France, Finland,
Poland, Scotland, Spain, Hungary,
Wales, New Zealand, the Netherlands,
and all over the United States, a
remarkable range. They represent
academics, independent scholars,
librarians, lawyers, publishers,
computer experts, and a variety of
serious amateurs, members often of
Tolkien societies. The entries on
the reception of Tolkien's work in
various countries show how the
coloring of national character
further diversifies Tolkien studies.
. . . [positiveexamples:
Italy, &
Russia] . . . Cultural
Studies practitioners should also be
glad of the scholarly range, as
entries on fandom, merchandising,
fan art and fiction, gaming, popular
music, Peter Jackson's movies, and
technoculture track popular culture
and its versions of Tolkien's
influence. . . .
[positive
examples:
Fandom,
Peter Jackson,
Popular Music, &
Technological Subcultures]

The format of the encyclopedia
profits greatly from an analytical
index, less usefully from
alphabetical and thematic listings
of entries at the beginning. The
alphabetical listing in fact seems
superfluous, and I found the list of
writers and their entries provided
by this journal's reviews editor
much more helpful. The main need for
any of these tools stems from the
interconnectedness of entries (an
occupational hazard in Tolkien
studies) and idiosyncratic entries
or alphabetization, where one must
look under T for Tom Bombadil or
under S for Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight but under O for Orfeo, Sir
and the "Old English Apollonius of
Tyre." Would anyone look first under
T for "Tolkien Scholarship" entries
instead of S, or "Tour in the Alps,
1911" instead of "Alps, Tour of"
without a clue to do so? (Actually,
many of us might have tried
something more like "Hiking" or
"Walking Tours" for the latter.) The
omitted blind entries (redirecting a
reader from a presumed entry to the
one actually appearing) would have
helped, of course, as would
completed cross-references, but so
would following common practices
such as alphabetizing names by
surnames and all titles by the first
word after an article. Combining
entries, something Drout mentions as
requested by the press, could have
proceeded even further. The
difference between a character in a
work and a work named for the
character is a clear one, but
separating them into two entries (as
in Farmer Giles of Ham and the text
of that name), often immediately
next to each other, creates
unnecessary overlap and at times
unfavorable comparisons between
them. . . .
[negative examples:
Shire,
Hobbits,
Thomas Aquinas, &
Law]

. . . [W]hile few but editors and
reviewers will probably read the
volume in its entirety, by doing so,
one notices especially how
"one-note" many entries on Christian
readings of the texts are. Perhaps
this effect comes in part from their
having applicability rather than
theoretical grounding: matching
beliefs or doctrines to textual
elements becomes akin to allegorical
equations, and measuring whether a
detail fits theological doctrine has
at best a compare-and-contrast
flavor. Such applications amass data
but too often advance narrowness
rather than insight, confirming a
view rather than opening others, and
robbing the text of the very newness
and eucatastrophe Tolkien
celebrated. If such were the only
entries sampled, they might well
cause a reader to reject the whole:
force-feeding often causes the
stomach to rebel. . . .
[negative
examples:
Christ,
Church of England,
Incarnation,
Redemption, &
Morgoth/Melkor; positive:
Old Norse Mythology,
Christian readings of Tolkien,
Christianity,
Resurrection, &
John Tolkien]

But alongside excellent or
responsible entries are things less
good. Whether one cites the press,
the writer, or the editor, it is
clear that even if errors were not
edited out, some corrections were
incorporated. For example, in Verlyn
Flieger's entry on Owen Barfield,
his age at death is described both
as "a month into his hundredth year"
(50) and "just eleven months short
of his hundredth year" (51)—the
latter is correct. So how do we
evaluate the multitude of errors in
word omission, grammar, spelling,
spacing, word division, and
bibliographic format, given that
certain authors seem to have
consistently clean, correct, and
detailed entries while others have
embarrassing mistakes…[negative
examples: Prophecy,
Prehistory] . . . One
might assume that the press should
have caught entries out of
alphabetical order …[examples:Farmer Giles of Ham/Farmer
Giles, Northern Venture/Northern
Courage, & Tolkien
Scholarship/Tolkien family] .
. . or a mistaken header (614) or
bibliographic format errors. Even
more egregious is the omission of
any bibliography whatsoever from a
large number of entries, which does
seem an editorial fault.
Contributors should have been urged
especially to provide thorough and
complete references from the start
(Drout says that "necessary
bibliography is included in each
entry," xxxi, but clearly not). . .
. [negative
examples:
Denmark,
Hungary,
Norway,
Russia,
Smith of Wootton Major,
America in 60s; positive:
Finland,
Early Tolkien Scholarship]
. . . Some entries had blurry
boundaries: . . .
[negative
examples:
Comedy, &
Humor].

Arguably some omissions occur
because topics have no scholarship
published on them. In some cases,
the material breaks new ground, as
in a theoretical approach not
previously applied, but in many, it
seems the writer wrote based on
general and easily available
knowledge, something not appropriate
to a work of "scholarship and
critical assessment," or delayed
putting bibliography in until too
late. . . . [negative
examples:
Augustine of Canterbury,
Anglo-Saxon Missions,
Rivendell,
Descent,
Merry,
Pippin,
Gimli; positive:
Augustine of Hippo] . . .
.For characters in particular, entries that rehearse attributes and deeds
suffer in comparison to more
sophisticated analysis where we
learn something or are graced with a
perceptive insight or new direction
of enquiry. A great difference
exists between critical assessment
and the admittedly useful guides to
Tolkien and Middle-earth that give
descriptive information. While
Middle-earth studies, in looking at
that world's "ingredients," might
seem predisposed to such summaries,
there is no reason why critical
thought need go missing.

Reviewing an encyclopedia can be
unsatisfying for both a reviewer and
her readers. For every entry
discussed, many more might be
omitted despite equal claims to
praise or correction, so comments
and stopping points can seem
arbitrarily applied. The added
difficulties with the press
complicate any review here. But this
volume represents one place where
those outside as well as within
Tolkien studies and interests can
indeed connect across communities,
and at its best, offers suggestive
richness and new directions for
further work. If the editors hoped
to help strengthen legitimation of
Tolkien scholarship, the volume as
it stands will not do so. Despite a
title suggesting scholarship and
critical assessment as central,
execution was marred by a failure to
delineate expectations and apply
standards of quality across any type
of entry, independent of failings by
the press. But its successes and
flaws become equally useful as
signposts, aiding those who engage
in critical assessment as further
enrichment of Tolkien's legacies.

In October 2006
we saw the publication of Michael
Drout's
J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia:
Scholarship and Critical Assessment.
From day one we could read on
Michael Drout's blog the news
that instead of 2500 there were only
made 800 copies of this book. He was
very frustrated in the way that the
J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia was
rushed into print without adequate
final editing and not happy with the
result. Then there were not many
reviews on line, except from some
contributors. Maybe the book turned
out to be too expensive? It seems
most people expected the book to be
something 'more' for such a lot of
money. Ironically if they had
printed more copies, the price might
have been cheaper. Still, I believe
the project was a good one, and so
do many people. Especially the on
line community has now taken over
the project and is starting to turn
the book into a very useful unit
after all! There are some
interesting projects, of which the
J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia - A
Reader's Diary is by far the
most interesting contribution so
far. I'm also looking forward to the
work that will be undertaken by
the Tolkien Gateway who are
planning to put all entries of the
encyclopedia on line and will edit
the articles, if the quality will be
high this will be very promising.

Here follows an interview with
Squire, one of the contributors of
the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and
also the man behind the J. R. R.
Tolkien Encyclopedia - A Reader's
Diary.

Here is a link to an
interesting site - it's a set of
reviews of Drout's Tolkien
Encyclopaedia [aka the Routledge
Encyclopaedia] by one of the
contributors, who certainly
doesn't pull any punches! Very
entertaining [and informative]

Here's a sample - it's about the
entry for Bilbo Baggins, and
expresses a view I agree with -
that of treating Tolkien's
legendarium as 'real', and the
thorny topic of 'Middle earth
studies' as opposed to 'Tolkien
Studies'.

This
article suffers from the odd
problem of seeming to take
Bilbo as a real person.
While it recounts Bilbo's
career in both The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings
with concision and accuracy,
it does not take the point
of view that he is a
fictional character in those
two books.

I think
this is a big mistake in an
Encyclopedia of this kind.
"Middle-earth Studies" is
the name given to this kind
of writing, but it is a
false and dangerous road to
go down. "Middle-earth
Studies" is inherently only
a technical sub-specialty of
"Tolkien Studies". All that
can be "known" of
Middle-earth comes from the
imaginative writings of one
man, so beyond the limited
arena of textual evolution
it is impossible to make any
of the comparative analyses
which are the heart of any
field of study. This
Encyclopedia in particular
was supposed to be dedicated
to studying Tolkien's works
in relation to their author
and his world, not as if
they had a separate
existence. It is juvenile to
buy seriously into Tolkien's
own device (his "vast game")
of presenting Middle-earth
as a recovered history, as
he himself would be the
first to warn us.

I also like the reviewer's
verdict on Shippey's entry on
Tolkien's contribution to 20th
c. literature - one word:
'Perfect'.

I've literally just become aware
of this site myself, so I
haven't had time to do more than
glance over it. But from what
I've seen [and heard of it] I
think it's very good. It's an
on-going diary type thing; so
worth keeping an eye on in
future.

Captain Bingo, 2/10/07:

Fantastic site - though the text
in the first column is
impossible to read without
highlighting it - not too much
of a problem though. Very
informed commentary.

Nieliqui Vaneyar, 2/10/07:

Thank you for the link, geordie!

I recognize, of course, some of
the contributors to the project
- Flieger and Lobdell for
example - but a number of
others, I have never heard of
before, and I wonder exactly
what their relationship is to
Tolkien writings that suggested
to the compilers of this book
that they should be allowed to
make entries.

For example, the writer on
Goldberry - Katherine Hesser.
Having my own agenda as it were
(to compile as much referential
information on Goldberry into
one place as possible), I was
surprised to find another writer
that I had never heard of and to
read Squire's review of the
article which suggested I have
done far more research into
Goldberry then she has.

In fact from some of the
reviews, I've seen far more
involved discussions (with
detailed references) here on the
plaza then what many of Squire's
reviews suggest was included.

Oh, well, just wondering.

halfir, 2/10/07:

geordie: As ever we are
in your debt! However,
given the price of the Drout
Encyclopaedia I suspect many
will have to rely on these
reviews as the base source is at
nigh on $US 200 (offered by
website discounters) and I
doubt if there will be too many
who can afford it, especially
given the 'opportunity cost' of
what one could do with the money
as regards other Tolkien books.

It would appear, also, that, in
common with most encyclopaedic
approaches to Tolkien, like the
curate's egg, it's good in
parts. To read, for example,
that Gene Hargrove - a totally
discredited writer on Bombadil
- has written an entry on
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
hardly fills one with
confidence!

Geordie, 2/17/07:

I've just been catching up with
the lates on this site. Blimey!
Take a look at the entry for
Oxford. It got a glowing first
report by one reviewer, then a
blistering taking-apart by
another, who as well as knowing
his/her stuff, really knows how
to deliver a serious academic
duffing-up. the gloves are off!

See particularly the comparison,
linked from that page. I give a
link to the main page
here

halfir, 2/17/07:

Ouch!Ms.
Fry must be as red as a
beetroot! I wonder if she knows
Elizabeth Currie! And
thanks once again for updating
us, I've referenced the site
earlier, but as I have a
thousand-and-one Tolkien
references it's so easy to
miss-out and not keep
up-to-date.

And Pearce's
contribution sounds as if
nothing new is being said, which
really does demonstrate the
dangers of the encyclopaedia
approach - a rehashing of old
ideas - or - even worse - a
rehashing of other people's old
ideas!

The more I read of the 'Drout
experience' - and its price -
the more I see the amazing value
- informationally and monetarily
of Hammond & Sculls
Reader and Companion! Go
buy!

However, to be fair to Drout he
is as fed up as many of those
who have contributed to 'Squiretalk'
(which he refers his readers to
in his blog) and is even
contemplating trying to buy the
rights from the current
publishers and try to bring some
order to mayhem in a republished
version.

and
perhaps it will be possible,
as some commenters have
noted, for me to purchase
the rights to the
Encyclopedia from Taylor and
Francis, finish editing it
properly, and republish it,
perhaps even with the
illustrations that I spent
weeks finding and
soliciting. But that's in
the future.....

Thanks Northumbrian for
drawing our attention to this
site!
Hmmm ... As I see, some people
do have a lot of spare time
It's always a positive thing to
share with other people of same
interests one's
own impressions/comments on
what's published out there, make
comparisons, quote from
published works and comment
pro- or con- ,
expressing one's personal
admirations for one author and
criticizing another (of course,
and inevitably - based on one's
personal tastes and
understandings.... )
But certainly, it is,
after all, a way of
communicating to others what one
particular individual has read
and thought upon, as well as a
way to exchange
views/opinions/information....

Geordie, 2/18/07:

Actually, i feel a bit bad now
about bringing this to the
forum's attention. I haven't
read Fry's article on Oxford
myself [apart from the version
in NE Brigand's piece] But I
have read her work before; her
piece 'The Enduring Popularity
and Influence on The Lord of the
Rings' in Vector #236
[July/August 2004] is, I feel a
work of proper scholarship; well
researched and argued, and well
laid out, with a change of font
for quotes from other authors
[these range from a quote from H
G Wells in 1895 to quotes from
the Web, with many quotes from
actual books in between]. And
notes - 68 of 'em, in a
four-page article. A proper job.

I don't know what happened with
the Encyclopaedia article, but I
get the feeling that a lot may
have been lost in the mad rush
to publication, with little or
no regard for editing etc. I'm
prepared to give Ms Fry the
benefit of the doubt.

Unlike NE Brigand.

But you must admit - when it
comes to a bit of 'constructive
nastiness' - halfir himself
couldn't have done a better job

[saving yer honour's presence,
halfir!]

Geordie, 2/18/07:

Back again - [this is a most
entertaining site
]

Here's a bit from the review of
the entry on Biology in
Tolkien's world which I find
irresistable:

Another
major problem is the Further
Reading. First, all four of
the items cited are by the
entry’s author, and all
within the last couple of
years, making “Biology of
Middle-earth” a vanity entry
as much as anything. These
references also suggest that
Schneidewind may, in fact,
be the only person
interested in the topic
(aside from Henry Gee)!
Second, none of the
references are in English.
The original guidelines for
contributors asked for
entries in English, where
possible, and ones that were
not overly difficult to
find. Wrong on both counts
here. An entry like this
ought to have included at
least The Science of
Middle-earth by Henry Gee,
which approaches such
questions much more
rigorously (see Amy
Amendt-Raduege’s review in
Tolkien Studies 3). It might
perhaps also have directed
readers to Madame Bovary's
Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at
Literature by David P.
Barash and Nanelle R. Barash,
which has recently
popularized the kind of
evolutionary approach to
literature that Schneidewind
is attempting here.

Madame Bovary's Ovaries! Hot
damn! Another book I've got
to buy.

halfir, 2/27/07:

geordie: Having
recently updated myself on
reviews on this website -
through your kindness - I am
rapidly coming to the conclusion
that the Encyclopaedia in
queston is going to be far less
read than this website reviewing
what's in it!

On his excellent
blogMichael C. Drout
gives a linkto a
reader’s diaryof the
Tolkien Encyclopedia, of which
he is the editor.Squire, the author of the
entries, is not just any reader but
one of those who contributed to the
encyclopedia.With that in mind, and
knowing the usual customs of the
collegial critic, we might expect
the well-known classic‘editorial blurb’ disguised
as a critical book review.It’s entirely the opposite,
as can be seen by reading the
introduction to the diary thatSquire published on his blog.

As the reading continues Squire
classifies the articles into three
distinct categories, and not a few
end up right in the jaws of the
Balrog.To the writing of the
Encyclopedia a small cadre of
Italians has also contributed, a few
of whom have already expiredunder the magnifying glass of
the unrelenting inspector.
Interesting too is the collection of
replies from other auditors, to whom
the diary is also accessible.

It is worth noting that Drout
himself, on finally getting his
hands on the volume, had
criticized the final result,
putting a good part of the blame on
the publisher.

N. E. Brigand, in conjunction
with his Diary review of "Judaism" by L. J.
Swain, January 25, 2007

At this point,
it may be helpful to offer a few remarks about
reviewers’ repeated references to the
encyclopedia’s inconsistent style for citations
and bibliographies.

The
encyclopedia is subtitled, “Scholarship and
Critical Assessment”. Its introductory matter
includes a list of standard abbreviations for
Tolkien’s best-known works, which can only be
meant for use in parenthetical citations. The
invitations sent to contributors included this
instruction: “Every article must include a
bibliography”, and also noted that the
encyclopedia was to “present the most recent
scholarship” and “convey the breadth of
scholarship on J.R.R. Tolkien”. The invitations
additionally included a link to the publisher’s
(now-defunct)
guidelines for contributors, which
included rules for formatting the “Further
Reading” list.

On the other
hand, the list of abbreviations did not appear
with the invitations or the entry guidelines –
it was made available to contributors only by
request. Additionally, the bibliography rules
included some contradictory instructions. And a
guideline forbidding footnotes could be taken to
prohibit internal citation; following the
encyclopedia’s publication, one contributor
privately told me he believed this was the
case. Another contributor has publicly noted
his surprise on learning that published
encyclopedia entries include “Further Reading”
lists. Both contributors noted that they would
have provided the missing information if asked;
that some of their entries include parenthetical
citation and bibliographies is presumably the
result of the editors’ efforts, which were
famously stymied by the publisher, Routledge.
Likewise Routledge put off contributors’ request
for advice on citations, with assurances that
the details would be handled by copy editors.
As Michael Drout has noted, this often didn’t
happen.

So criticism of
entries for inadequate bibliographies or poor
citation style is directed as much at the
publishers as at the authors. Nonetheless, I
think such comments are necessary, as they point
out what the encyclopedia should have provided
to its readers, if only there had been clear
instruction to the contributors and capable
editing of their work.

Mel, once again, demonstrates J.R.R. Tolkien
"Air Superiority" in this exchange. A friend and
colleague of mine had been wistfully longing for
a copy of the new and celebrated (though
overpriced) J.R.R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia but with a wave of
his hand, brother Melton opined:

"While most of the content of said tome is
excellent, the presentation is awful and it’s
ridiculously overpriced. Nothing in there is
worth that much money. I got it for X-Mas and
was very disappointed. It’s also full of
feminist and communist higher critical gobbledy-gook.
What you need to get is
this. It’s basically a Mathew Henry style
commentary on “LOTR.” Fascinating source
material.

"And then if you really want to spend more than
$100 proceed to
this. Quite simply the best stuff out there.
I have been most impressed by the scholarship of
Wayne Hammond and Cristina Scull. Their
knowledge of LOTR development and early Tolkien
influence is astonishing.

That's
J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and
Critical Assessment, ed. Michael D.C. Drout
(Routledge, 2007 - that's the copyright date,
2007). I haven't read it all by any means, but
I've looked through it and noticed this:

1. What a huge volume (774 pages, letter size)
with big print. Yes, I know, the print on most
books may be too small, but it's a good thing
the publishers didn't provide wider margins or
the space-wasting illustrations found in most
books of this kind, or it'd be even more
physically unwieldy.

2. Thank goodness, none of my contributions were
mangled in copy-editing. In fact they seem to
have been hardly touched at all, which is less
than most of my editors, good or bad, do. In
particular, "Further Reading" sections. Either I
didn't know, or forgot being told, that articles
should have these. In a few places where I did
quote works and provide bibliographical
citations these have been put as "Further
Reading", but look at my entry on Parodies,
which discusses eight books and three web sites,
and nobody either asked me for full
bibliographical references or added them
themselves. Granted that I should have done so
without being asked, but: did anybody edit this
book?

3. "See also" references are rampantly
inconsistent. For one instance, my entry on Jim
Dundas-Grant of the Inklings mentions Dr. Havard,
and there's a "see also" to my entry on him; but
that entry on Dr. Havard does not mention Dundas-Grant
and does not have a see also to him, where it
would be needed. The entry on "Education" (vague
title, turns out to mean Tolkien's education)
ends abruptly at his high-school graduation,
with no indication in the "See also" or anywhere
else that the story is taken up under "Oxford",
which is basically a biography of Tolkien for
his years there and says virtually nothing about
the context of the place.

4. The Oxford entry also contains what may be
the most unintentionally hilarious sentence in
the book, on p. 491: "Tolkien's secret
engagement to Edith would end soon with Edith's
reception into the Roman Catholic Church." This
sounds for all the world as if he dumped her for
turning Catholic, when what is evidently meant
is that her becoming Catholic meant the
engagement need no longer be kept secret. Yes,
context makes it clear (eventually), but why
trip up the reader on the way?

5. Some of the entries on characters and places
in Tolkien's work read like entries for a
Foster's Guide to Middle-earth rather
than for a Tolkien encyclopedia, starting out
describing their place in the sub-creation (i.e.
as if they were real) and only later getting to
their role as fictional creations. This would be
less irritating if the entries written this way
didn't also fail to say where the sub-creational
information on them comes from. I know, and you
know, but prospective readers of the
encyclopedia don't. But other entries of this
kind, by different hands, are quite
conscientious. Checking on which ones wrote
which way, I can't say I'm a bit surprised.

6. Again, did anybody edit this book? There are
two separate entries on the book The
Adventures of Tom Bombadil, explaining the
same things, one by Gene Hargrove under its
title, and one by Tom Shippey under "Poems by
Tolkien: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil."
Did nobody notice?

7. Why is there a biographical entry on Susan
Dagnall, the go-between who brought The
Hobbit to Allen and Unwin, and none on the
Unwins, who continued to be so important in
Tolkien's life? They're only mentioned in
passing in various places; nothing about them as
people. Did anybody edit this thing at all?

8. I'm not going to count the other rampant
inconsistencies in what got entries and what
didn't, and in approach, length, etc of
comparable entries. There's just too much.
Except to note that some topics are chopped up
into tiny bits under different entries, while
just about everything on Elvish linguistics is
under one very long entry, "Languages Invented
by Tolkien" by Carl Hostetter, which is so clear
and so good that it suggests the entire
encyclopedia should have been written this way,
as a
set of long essays on broad relevant topics
instead of little bitty ones on a lot of
peripheral topics some of which are barely
connected to Tolkien at all. Look at the entry
on Aquinas, which begins by noting that Tolkien
is never known to have mentioned him. That's
a promising start in a Tolkien encyclopedia.

9. This is not my copy. I borrowed it. The price
being charged contributors - or anyone else for
that matter - is obscene, and despite some
valuable material I can hardly call the book
worth it.

John Garth, in the
Times Literary Supplement,
December 22, 2006 (reproduced
without permission)

Tolkien encyclopedias have been
around for years. The kind of books
which might refresh your knowledge
of the Gondorian kin-strife or the
geography of the Shire, they were
intended for those fascinated by the
teeming detail of Tolkien's imagined
world, not for those seeking to
understand his work as literature,
let alone for those perplexed by his
success. The phenomenon reflected a
tendency which only began to recede
with the publication of Tom
Shippey's study The Road to
Middle-earth in 1982. With the
same eagerness that enthusiasts
staked their claim to Tolkien,
literary criticism had spurned him.

Now, as a sign of the coming of age
of Tolkien studies, we have two
works of reference which attempt to
breach the old barriers. One
compiles the work of 128
contributors, the other is written
by two authors; each publication
exemplifies the benefits and
disadvantages of these modes of
production.

The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia
seethes with insight and opinion. It
benefits greatly from articles by
acknowledged experts, such as
Shippey himself, and Verlyn Flieger,
the author of Splintered Light:
Logos and Language in Tolkien's
World (revised edition 2002).
The guiding hand of Michael Drout,
an Anglo-Saxonist, is evident in the
high proportion of medieval entries,
which further emphasizes both
Tolkien's contribution to English
philology and English philology's
contribution to Tolkien. There are
valuable articles on the medieval
cultures, languages and philosophies
familiar to Tolkien but not to most
readers. What might have surprised
the old professor is the use made of
critical theory: race and gender
studies, subject theory and
semiotics, textuality and orality.
In between, among much else, are
discussions of translations, fandom
and film. All this is worthwhile:
the more Tolkien's success baffles
the sceptics, the more it demands
serious examination.

Less welcome are descriptions of
fictitious characters, places and
totems whose sole frame of reference
is Middle-earth, as if such entries
had strayed in from the old-style
Tolkien encyclopedias.

The admirable articles on Gollum and
Gandalf, which probe literary
technique and mythical parallels,
ought to have served as models for
the rest. It is to be hoped that a
revised edition, whether printed or
digital, might streamline the
entries and iron out the distracting
errors and overlaps.

Like the J. R. R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia, the Reader's
Guide volume of The J. R. R.
Tolkien Companion and Guide
lists people and places of
significance to Tolkien. But it is
much more thorough: every faculty
colleague at Leeds and Oxford
appears; every available work, down
to the shortest individually
published poem, receives a summary
and (where possible) a textual and
critical history.

The Silmarillion, compiled by
Christopher Tolkien from a complex
of texts, is wisely treated in
discrete sections by chapter.

The Reader's Guide bears no
resemblance to the old-style
Middle-earth encyclopedias; its
focus is on biographical,
bibliographical and textual matters.

This methodical thoroughness is only
to be expected from Christina Scull
and Wayne G. Hammond, who wrote the
standard guide to Tolkien's visual
art and last year produced a
Reader's Companion to The
Lord of the Rings. However, the
handling of themes and critical
issues here is less ambitious than
in the J. R. R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia. It is also easy to
lose one's way in the Reader's
Guide, which would have
benefited from headwords on each
page as well as a thematic list of
entries, or even division into a
"Who's Who", a "Where's Where" and
so forth.

Scull and Hammond draw on some of
the family papers previously seen
only by Tolkien's authorized
biographer Humphrey Carpenter, and
they also gather much information
from more dispersed material; so it
is a pity that they have not
methodically provided source notes.
For anyone examining Tolkien's life,
their 800-page timeline should prove
invaluable. No biographer now should
have any excuse for regurgitating
(as too many have done) Carpenter's
venerable but slight biography of
1977.

It is tempting to call these
impressive works of reference
definitive, but that would miss the
point. The mapping of a complex
critical and contextual landscape by
Michael Drout's team, and Christina
Scull and Wayne Hammond's generous
dispensation of biographical and
textual apparatus, should facilitate
further exploration of Tolkien as a
writer, not make it unnecessary.

I
just received my copy of Drout,
ed.'s, J.R.R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia this evening[1] and
have spent about an hour reading in
it. I thought I'd share some initial
thoughts.

Leaving aside the price,[2] which
seems outrageous (though it is
unfortunately not out of line with
academic publishers who aim their
works primarily at libraries, not at
readers), this is a book that
nonetheless contains quite a bit of
meat for the price of the meal. Most
of the important Tolkien scholars
are represented here (the most
obvious exception being Wayne
Hammond and Christina Scull, who
were engaged in their own great
works at the time), and those whom
you have come to know and trust do
not disappoint in their articles,
which make for important reading.

Unfortunately, among this meat there
are some veins of gristle, as well
as some other, mysterious
substances. The "ists" appear here
and there to assert their favorite
"isms" at Tolkien's expense, and
there are some frankly strange
articles even apart from these, such
as the one on "Missions from
Anglo-Saxon England" that, while no
doubt entirely accurate in its
contents, makes not one mention
of Tolkien or his works, and seems
entirely unconnected with the
titular purpose of this
Encyclopedia.[3]

The
greatest flaws of this work are the
unevenness of its contributions, and
the large number of editing and
typographical errors. Both of these
can be laid at the feet of the stern
insistence of the publisher to meet
a really completely arbitrary
deadline (esp. given the price of
the volume: one cannot imagine that
Routledge believed it would appear
on shelves in the malls this
Christmas!). What was needed, and I
think had been planned by editor
Drout, was at least a few months
subsequent to getting all the
articles in hand in which he could
uniformly proof, edit, pare,
cross-reference, and (where
necessary) fill in any remaining
gaps in the scope. Unfortunately,
Drout was denied that chance by the
editor (as those of us working with
Drout at the end can painfully
attest), and even such corrections
as were supplied by those of us who
were able to see some of the work in
galleys are only partially evidenced
in the published work, leaving many
glaring errors intact. Needless to
say, such flaws as remain in the
published work do not redound to the
glory of Routledge as an academic
publisher; but then, in my
(admittedly limited) experience,
academic publishing generally seems
ever less and less interested in
quality than in quantity.

Nonetheless, if one can make
allowance for such blemishes, on
balance, I think the volume
important and even worth the money
(if one can afford it). Which of
course only makes its flaws,
entirely avoidable save for the
impatience of the publisher, all the
more lamentable.

[2]: For fellow contributors: I
ended up having to buy my own, as I
was politely but firmly informed by
the Routledge rep. that contributors
were not due copies. The best deal I
found, even better than the
contributor's discount offered by
Routledge, is to order from
Barnes and Noble onlineas a "B&N Member" for $140 w/
free shipping -- even if you have to
pay the $25/ year fee to become a
member, this works out to be a
better deal -- and then also apply
the coupon code D3W6C9D (expires
today, alas!) for an additional %25
off.

[3]: A fact I mentioned to Dr. Drout
upon seeing it in galleys, but which
he, alas, seems to have been unable
to do anything about.

A
P.S.: I should note that typos in
articles are not always the fault of
the author of the article. In
reviewing my own articles I noticed
a glaring error that was introduced
in copy-editing: a mechanical
replacement of "as" used as a
conjunction of time ("as these were
posited during..") with "because",
yielding a completely altered and
nonsensical sentence. I can hardly
be the only one whose article was
similarly mangled, though I was one
of only a few afforded a chance to
review galleys by the publisher
(because of the technical nature of
my articles, being on the
languages). I also was able to see
large parts of alphabetical sections
containing my own articles, and did
my best to proof them, but as
mentioned previously, not all
corrections I supplied made it into
print. Again, not redounding to
Routledge's glory.

First, in the interests of full disclosure, I
should say that I, too, am a contributor to the
Encyclopedia. Second, let me explain my rating.
I'm inclined to give this impressive reference
work five stars -- but cannot quite do so, for
two reasons: 1) the price is quite high, indeed
in my opinion it is probably higher than
necessary, and 2) it isn't quite the book it
could have been, had Mike Drout's original
vision been realized. For example, it was
supposed to include hundreds of illustrations as
well as blind entries, etc. There's a whole
drama behind the publication of the Encyclopedia
... but that being said, let me focus on the
task at hand: offering a capsule review of the
work.

It is quite an impressive and diverse
collection of entries, by an equally impressive
and diverse collection of scholars. I feel quite
overwhelmed and honored to be represented among
them. Luminaries like Tom Shippey, Verlyn
Flieger, Douglas Anderson -- and too many others
to begin to name -- give the Encyclopedia
tremendous depth. Also, you'll find a wealth of
the latest critical approaches and ideas
represented here. Mike Drout has accomplished no
less than a Herculean labor here -- and it has
really paid off. There's definitely plenty to
interest any serious Tolkien fan.

For serious fans of Tolken, and particularly
those who like to examine it as a work of
literature, this book is a marvelous tool edited
by a gifted professor and lover of Tolkien. (His
blog is at: wormtalk.blogspot dot com.) And if
the price is a bit much for your budget, see if
your school or public library might be willing
to pick up a copy. Disclaimer: I contributed
several articles.

The Encyclopedia is finally out,
so if you have $175.00 and a real
interest in Tolkien, you should
check it out. Although there are
some imperfections (to say the
least) I think it is a very useful
resource for people interested in
Tolkien at all levels.

I also want to give you the story of
the imperfections.

I've been working on the
Encyclopedia for three or so years
now. It was a weird process, as an
editor at Routledge contacted me,
but then I had to write the
proposal, etc., but it basically
went well with only a few major
glitches (some contributors bailed
out at the last second--or actually
beyond the last second--and there
was a bit of tension when a few
important articles were late and the
press wanted to boot them). Then,
Taylor and Francis bought Routledge
and, this summer, decided to close
down the encyclopedia division as
unprofitable. My editors were let go
(no one told me; I found out via
bounced emails) and many projects
were, apparently, cancelled. The
Tolkien Encyclopedia was far enough
along that they decided not to
cancel it, so for once in my life I
lucked out on the timing.

But that didn't stop Taylor and
Francis from screwing things up.
Back in the early summer I began to
receive fascicles of the
Encyclopedia for proofing. They were
a hideous mess. Everything that
could be wrong—from citation format
to layout to basic copy-editing
mistakes—was wrong, and I spent well
over a hundred hours marking up the
typescript. This went back to the
production people and then, for a
long time I heard nothing. And I was
shocked to learn that there were no
plans to send individual articles
back to contributors for proofing:
every project I've ever been on has
let contributors get a final look.
Not this one.

Likewise, there was an inexplicable
decision not to include the 100
illustrations I had spent weeks
collating. This was never
communicated to me until after
I asked, and I was not consulted on
the decision.

Even worse, when we originally
designed the Encyclopedia, there
were to be many "blind" entries. So,
for example, if you looked up "balrog"
it would say "see Monsters." This
practice was promised to me because
I was asked to aggregate a great
many short entries into large pieces
to make it easier to find enough
contributors. Routledge then refused
to put in the blind entries, and
though I tried to make an end run to
the compositor, that was apparently
blocked. So what appear to be
bizarre decisions were not so
originally: there is no entry on "Ancrene
Wisse and Hali Mei∂had" because that
article is covered in the "AB
Language" and "Ancrene Wisse" and
"Katherine Group" entries, but then
Routledge screwed up and didn't put
in the blind entry. They claim that
the index and the thematic table of
contents (which sucks a bit) will
solve this problem. I am not
convinced, and I think that the
Encyclopedia would have been
much easier to use had they
listened to me and followed our
original agreement. But at least the
content is still all there, even if
it takes more work to find it.

But really much worse are the
problems of corrections. Although
Routledge did not send final proof
copies of articles to individual
contributors, I personally had been
contacting people and emailing back
to Routledge sets of corrections
that were coming in from the
editorial board, various
contributors, etc. As we got further
into August, I began to get very
worried that I was not going to have
enough time to proof the entire
thing again (as it obviously needed;
when you are making 8-25 corrections
per column you can't expect
to have gotten everything). Around
August 17, the entire typescript
came back, and it was still a
serious mess, with a lot of basic
formatting errors, etc.
Unfortunately, that was right when I
got pneumonia (followed by my son
getting pneumonia), and I was out of
action for a few weeks. When I did
eventually get to proofing and
started to return fasciles, I was
informed that "we are sending the
whole thing to press tomorrow."
Really. When I objected, I was told
that all the errors I had found (and
spent many hours on just for the A-C
fasciles) would surely have been
caught by the professional
copy-editors (who had somehow
managed to miss them the first
time). The volume went to press and
I never was able to see a final
version. So there are lots of
corrections that were made (for
example, Doug Anderson had sent me a
pile of corrections that I dutifully
sent on but don't seem to have been
incorporated). Certainly the
contributors should not be blamed,
as they had no idea that the press
would do something as idiotic as not
sending laid-out articles back to
contributors for proofing.

In the end, I'm disappointed that
Routledge / Taylor and Francis
marched the ball down the field
almost to the end zone and then
decided to punt. This is still a
very, very good resource, but it
could have been a great one, and I'm
disappointed that it's not.

But let me conclude on a more
amusing note. For a few weeks I had
been badgering Routledge to send me
my author's copies, or at least one
author's copy, so I could see how
the book came out. Finally, on
Wednesday, my copies arrived. This
is advising week at Wheaton, so I've
had students trooping in and out of
my office. I showed the Encyclopedia
to one, and he said "but isn't that
at the library?" Yes, the library
had gotten its copy and put it on
display two weeks ago and I
hadn't noticed it. Doh!

7 Comments:

Congratulations
all the same!
I am very much looking forward to
getting a copy -- there has been much
discussion already in our Encyclopedia
writing group based on 2 copies our
members have already gotten.
There are dozens of articles I am dying
to read, but even more I look forward to
just browsing about, and reading
articles on topics I would never think
to research on my own initiative!
Your grim account of the Tayor and
Francis fiasco explains a lot about the
copy editing that seemed inexplicable -
thank you for going public with that.
Better luck with the online edition!
I'd like to know where one can get it
for $175? Amazon's lowest price seems to
be about $189 discounted; the list is
$200.

What an
interesting look behind the scenes --
thank you! And I second squire's
congratulations. I've already spent many
hours reading (the) Encyclopedia, and
have already found it useful: Dale
Nelson's article on 19th and 20th C.
literary influences on Tolkien, for
instance, was highly relevant to a
recent discussion at Richard Scott
Nokes's blog.

For the
previous poster, Amazon now has it for
$175. It's also ranking at this moment
in the 80K range, which is marvelous for
a just-out book that pricey.For once, Barnesandnoble.com has a
better price: $140 if you're a member.
And if I read them right, membership
costs $25, making the total $165, not
counting what you may save with other
discounts over the next year.
I guess your difficulties as the
editor-in-chief getting a copy means
that minor contributors such as myself
won't be getting a copy gratis. Sigh,
given my writer's budget, I'll be asking
that the Seattle Public and University
of Washington libraries get copies I can
read.
In addition to writing, I also publish,
so get in touch with me if this
publisher adds insult to injury and
drops the book after a year or two. I
can help you find a way to keep it in
print permanently.
--Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling
Tolkien

Likewise, from
me, a hearty congratulations, despite
the frustrations you endured. It is
interesting, as well as most
disappointing, to hear of all the
aggravations in the process. Thank-you
for sticking with it, and for your
openness of the situation!
I'm beginning to read through the
encyclopedia from cover to cover, and am
enjoying the wealth of information that
is there. I'm ignoring any editing
problems, so rest at ease: I think most
people will, if they have any grace. :)
As squire indicated, there are some
articles that I will read that, left to
my own ways, I wouldn't have
investigated otherwise. As a result
there is much learning in store for me,
which I am excited about.
I'm especially moved by your tribute to
Dan Timmons in the Introduction, and am
thankful that he was able to contribute
despite his failing health at the time.
May this volume bless and stimulate
students of Tolkien for years to come.
Jo-Anna :)

Sorry to hear
of the mess. And I thought that I had
problems getting galley proofs here in
Korea!
Anyway, congratulations.
Jeffery Hodges

[Update]. I have learned that Taylor and
Francis has only printed 800 copies of the
Encyclopedia rather than the planned 2,500. I
don't know if these numbers make a difference to
collectors or not, but there you have them.
Second, if you are a contributor you can receive
(supposedly) a 20% discount on the book by
emailing christine.squire@taylorandfrancis.com.
Finally, thus far Taylor and Francis has
absolutely refused to distribute any contributor
gratis copies despite an original promise to do
so; I am working on this, but without much
success thus far.